Don't Be Afraid of The Dark
by Mrs. Waters
Summary: Josie, Ava, and Riley grew up together as the closest, and most regular, cousins that could be found. That is, until the summer they find out they aren't normal, they are demigods, all of them, and before they even have time to adjust to this rapid change they are sent on a predestined quest to save two of the most important demigods around: Percy and Annabeth.


Hello Percy Jackson readers!This is a story that i started working on a little over a year ago so its not my best writing wise and I am planning on re-writing it... sometime. Any way as is in summary this is a story about three cousin all demigod children of different olympians. They find out they're Half-Bloods, yadyada, and stuff happens! As I'm pretty sure Maia Angelo said, if i could tell you what the story was about quickly enough to write it here, then i wouldn't have had to write the story! Also, fyi, Percy and Annabeth won't be in this story until kind of late on, but there will be some familiar faces that pop up :)

As we all know, I do not own PJO or HoO or any of the characters in them. Although if Rick was looking to sell Iwould happily take Nico :)

Josie's POV

I had never noticed how odd people's faces looked upside-down. I almost didn't recognize either of the two people sitting in front of me, even though we had practically been raised together. We weren't sisters but we might as well have been. All of us were fourteen and had varying lengths of curly brown hair. My eyes were the only ones that differed in our group, hazel green instead of their warm brown. We were cousins so we looked a little alike, but not much, mostly just our tanned skin and their eyes

I flipped back over on the couch, and looked more closely at Ava, where she was sat on our grandfather's dark green loveseat, reading the Odyssey. It was a summer reading assignment, I should know; I had the same one even though we went to different schools. Apparently the Odyssey was considered such a pivotal piece of literature all incoming freshman everywhere needed to read it. I was putting it off until the last minute, as per usual. Riley, on the other hand, had already finished it.

But that was Riley, always finishing any assignment way before it was due. Ava took her time, but was normally done a week in advance. I was more of a 'wait-until-I-absolutely-have-to-do-it' person.

"Ava," I dropped my chin on my hands in front of me, "would you say that's an easy read?" I was trying to subtly find out when the absolutely last second was going to be.

Unfortunately, she instantly knew what I was doing. Her kind eyes turned up to me suspiciously, her small pink mouth quirked at one corner.

"Putting it off again?" Her amusement was apparent through her eyes.

"Only of course." I full out smiled at her.

"Josie," Riley interrupted, "you know you shouldn't. I've told you I'll help you with your study skills, and the offer is still on the table." She raised her thin eyebrows at me, her full mouth pulling into a half frown half smirk.

I sighed and blew a piece of short, wavy brown hair out of my face. My hair, of all of us, was the shortest, a barely two inch long pixie cut.

This was the never ending battle between Riley and I: schoolwork.

"I don't know why I should change what I do," I shrugged, "I still pass." I smiled tauntingly at her.

She just sighed and went back to brushing our fluffy, not fat, Husky and St. Bernard mix, Tobi. He jumped up suddenly, licking Riley on her straight nose. She laughed.

"See, he agrees with me." She looked up and smiled. I huffed. Well, if Tobi agreed there really was no chance of me winning this one.

A car horn honked from outside our grandfather's cozy house, signaling he was home with the groceries. I jumped up and ran out of the house, the belt loop of my jean capris getting stuck on the handle of the white painted wooden front door. I removed it impatiently, then went outside, Ava, Riley, and Tobi following me.

Our grandfather stood at the hatch of his black ford explorer, pulling out bags from the store. Our new friend and neighbor stood next to him, helping. We had met Cypress last week when our respective parents had dropped us off at our grandpa's house. He had made a quick friend, and his dark skin and curly brown hair were welcome sights.

"Well, what are you all just standing there for?" Yelled Cypress. "These things are heavy, I swear I got all the cans."

We jogged down the gravel driveway on the side of the green lawn, and grabbed the rest of the bags, then carried them inside to the cramped kitchen, where we sat them on the yellowing linoleum countertops. We all barely fit in the small room, as it was roughly as big as a small van.

"Seriously Gramps," I said, stretching my back, "did you really get all cans? I'm pretty sure I saw some canned bread in there." Using one finger I peeked inside the bag. Seeing it was broccoli I retreated.

"Umm, grandpa," Ava said from where she stood by the backdoor in the room. Having already started putting the groceries away, she stopped, "weren't you going to make mashed potatoes?" She sounded like she thought she was committing a crime by simply speaking, but that was Ava. Sometimes I really wondered how we were related. I never shut up, she never spoke. I always spoke my mind, and I mean_ always, _but Ava held her tongue. She was generally thought of as the more polite one.

"Yes I am. That is," he smiled, "if you girls will help me out." His kindly eyes were familiar; they were the same ones as my mom's, my aunt and uncle's, and Ava and Riley's. I was the only one in our family that I knew of who had different eyes. My mom told me I got them from my dad.

"Of course we'll help you." Riley agreed, throwing a fleeting smile over her shoulder at him. She continued stacking the million cans in the cupboard which she stood in front of.

"Uhh," I said, rifling through the groceries and realizing what had made Ava speak up, "Gramps, I think you forgot to get the canned milk."

"What?" He looked at me with confused amusement.

I sighed, the sigh of a master of sarcasm, forever alone in the world.

"You didn't get any milk." I reiterated.

"No milk?" Riley said, an odd and out of place tone to her voice. "You can't make mashed potatoes without milk. That's like- like…" she trailed off, and I realized then why her voice had sounded so off. She had been trying to make a joke. I helped her out, knowing she would be embarrassed otherwise.

"That's like making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich without the 'and'. What?" I said when they all looked at me strangely, "it would just fall apart." I arched my brows and raised my hands in the air. It was true though, without conjunctions the _world_ would fall apart.

Still, Riley just rolled her eyes and turned away from me. _Fine, _I thought_, last time I try to help her out._ Even though I knew it wouldn't be.

"Anyway," I said, back on target, "we can run up to the corner store and get some. It's not far, and besides, I wanna get out of the house." I hated being cooped up indoors. I much preferred the sun or moon visible above me.

Grandpa looked skeptical for a moment, his thin mouth pinching. In the end though he just waved his hand. "Fine, go. But take Cypress with you. You're sure your parents are okay with you staying for dinner again? You've barely been home the past week." The last part he directed at Cypress who, like grandpa had said, had barely gone home since we got here. I had a sneaking suspicion he had a crush on Tobi.

"Yeah, they're fine with it," he smiled, a flash of white teeth, "this is the time they both took off from work, so they're spending it with their 'adult friends'" He put the last can in the cupboard next to Riley, then closed the door.

"Well, alright then. You all get going before it gets too dark." He shooed us out the back door, handing me a ten dollar bill for the milk. "Be back soon." He called after us as we made our way down the path to the road out front.

"We will!" I yelled back to him and waved, then closed the latch on the red picket fence behind me and headed from the yard out to the street.

I walked between Riley and Ava in the dimming light, Cypress slightly ahead of us. For someone who was badly crippled enough that he needed the crutches he always had with him, he could move. When we had first met him, he had come right out and told us what had happened. When he was four his family had gotten in a really bad wreck and he hadn't been wearing a seatbelt.

It hadn't changed what I thought of him at all, but I had known it was slightly a shock for Riley, and especially Ava. They were both really sensitive people, even if sometimes Riley's intellect got in the way, and their compassion for him almost made them forget that he was still a person. Another reason for our different reactions was where we went to school. They both went to private all girls' schools back home in Louisville Kentucky. I, on the other hand, went to a school for the performing arts downtown. It was a public magnet school, so I was used to seeing people with many different handicaps.

But, anyway, after the first couple of days their reactions had faded. Cypress had become an honorary member of our club. Even if his name was really strange.

I was lost in my own thoughts, and was only pulled out of them when I heard Riley say my name.

"What?" I said, not intelligently. She and Ava both laughed.

"I asked if you were sure you didn't want my help with the Odyssey. I think you would really like it if you just _read_ it." Her eyes glowed with that fire that they only got when she talked about books, and while I shared her passion for them, I hated school work.

"No thanks. I don't really think all that Greek mythology stuff is for me." I shrugged my shoulders, and heard Cypress snort ridiculously loud. "What?"

"Nothing," he said, barely containing his laughter, "it's just, who doesn't like Greek mythology? Well," he added, "except the monsters of course."

"No way," said Ava. We were some of the few people she was herself in front of. "the monsters are the best part. Everything would be so boring without them." Riley nodded in agreement.

Cypress got a strange look on his face and muttered something I couldn't quite hear. It sounded something like, "you say that now."

Well, that or , "go slay that cow," but I was pretty sure it was the first one.

We had made it to the small mom and pop store by then, and it only took us a second to get in, get the milk, and get out. We were on our way back home.

We were silent then, each of us consumed in our own thoughts, mine mainly centered around whether or not Cypress used teeth whitener. I was interrupted in my thoughts though, by shivers down my spine. I looked around a little, feeling oddly like someone was watching me.

I was about to shake it off, tell myself I was just making it up, when Cypress jerked to a halt in front of us.

"Cypress," Ava touched his arm, "what is it?"

"Nothing, I-" he was oddly pale, "I thought I saw something. Just a cat though." He turned and gave us all a shaky smile, then kept walking, though I noticed, at a slightly faster pace.

Ava, Riley, and I looked at each other. All of knew something was up with that, with him, but later that nigh when we were sitting up and talking, like we so often did, we agreed that it couldn't have been that important.

But, oh man, were we wrong.

Ava's POV

When I woke up in the morning it was to Josie shaking my arm urgently.

"Ava, you have to get up. Something's wrong, there's," she looked around worriedly, "there's a fire or something, I don't know. Just get up." She darted away from my bed and I was up and wide awake in seconds. I looked around our still dark room frantically. Where were Josie and Riley? Their beds were unmade and they weren't in them.

I crossed the room quickly, going out the already open door and down the stair case. It emptied out into the living room, where I saw a sight that I would never forget for as long as I lived.

In the middle of the small living room standing between me and the entrance to the kitchen, having broken through the wall, was a giant _thing. _I knew what it was in my mind, but I couldn't bring myself to admit that there was a _dragon _in the living room. The wall that had at one time held the front door lay in broken chunks all around it. I saw immediately why Josie had thought there was a fire. The thing seemed to bellow a smoke like fog from its every pore and it pooled on the ground like fog from dry ice. It's hide was a muted, sickly grey color, and it was at least the size of a large bus. It had wings and a long neck and tail that only added to it's size. Josie stood directly in front of it, looking terrified but determined, her fists clenched at her sides. I noticed with a shock that in one of them she held a giant kitchen knife.

Riley stood off to the side with our grandpa, trying to get past the dragon and out of the front door. Just when it looked like they might have made it, the dragon made it's first move. It lunged forward at Josie, its tail swinging to block Riley's passage, and I screamed.

_This can't be happening, _I kept telling myself, _you'll wake up any second now. _I tried closing my eyes and pinching myself, but that did nothing.

When I looked up again, I saw that Josie had a big cut on her arm that was dripping blood. Her face was pale, but somehow she kept standing. Josie had always been the bravest person I knew, unlike me, but this was way beyond what I had expected of her. She looked almost, well, _excited. _She was breathing hard and was clearly terrified, but there was an excitement in her eyes that I had never seen before.

The dragon darted forward again, and Josie barely managed to dodge in time. It roared, a sound so awful I felt it in my bones. It wasn't anything like the normal noise you thought a dragon would make. This was a deep, pulsing bass sound that shook the whole house. When I looked closer, I realized that Josie had caused it by stabbing the knife she held deep into it's neck.

I was shocked for a second time. I had never imagined in my wildest dreams that Josie would ever hurt a living creature, even if it was evil.

It wasn't hurt though, I found out a second later, when it shook it's head and sent the knife flying back at Josie. She ducked with reflexes I didn't know she had, and the knife imbedded itself in the wall by the kitchen door, too far away for her to reach. She was trapped, cornered by the dragon against a wall, with no weapon. It crept up on her, forcing her farther and farther back, until her back hit the wall. She closed her eyes, and her lips moved, forming words I couldn't make out.

I wanted to do something, anything, but I was frozen. I could try to help Josie, but how? Or I could go with Riley to get grandpa out, but then I would be abandoning Josie. I looked back and forth between my two impossible choices. Josie, or Riley? I couldn't pick, I couldn't.

I was distracted from my inner turmoil by Cypress appearing through the destroyed wall. He wasn't using his crutches, I noticed with slight curiosity. His face turned up at the monster, his eyes widening shock, but not so much disbelief like I had expected. His expression only lasted for a moment before it hardened into a mask of determination. He looked over, seeming to take inventory. When he saw that one of us was missing I saw the blood leave his face.

I darted down the steps to him, flattening myself against the wall to squeeze past the dragon. It seemed to be taking it's time in killing Josie, which I was okay with. I could, for some reason, hear her talking, which was exactly like her, to talk, even now. I prayed that she would shut up. I loved my cousin but I knew when she talked she could make a regular person want to kill her, forget about a monster-dragon-thing.

I got to where Cypress was standing by Riley and grandpa, discussing something very animatedly. Cypress dashed away a second later, heading straight toward the face of the monster where Josie was. I watched him go with surprise. I shook my head and joined Riley in grabbing our grandpa's other arm and pulling him out of the whole in the wall into the front yard. We walked him out to the street. Riley turned toward him.

"Stay here. I'll be right back." She started to run back into the house. _Should I go with her_? I didn't want to, but if they needed me….

"Wait!" I yelled and Riley stopped, turning around to face me. She looked concerned, but also slightly annoyed.

"What?"

"What am I supposed to do?" I shifted uncomfortably on my feet. "Should I stay here?" I wanted her to make up my mind for me. Unfortunately she just shrugged.

"I don't know Ava. But," she conceded, "you probably wouldn't be as much a help as a hindrance."

I blew all the air out of my lungs, thankful for once of Riley's cool decision making. "Okay then, I'll stay here with grandpa." She shrugged again, and then ran into the smoke billowing from the whole in the wall.

Thanks again for reading! if you want to read some of my non-fanfic stuff I have an account on fictionpress under the user name Mrs. Waters as well :) Thanks again!


End file.
